Power relay tower toppled down with IEDs

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Suspected members of the Dawlah Islamiya toppled down a steel power relay tower in Kauswagan, Lanao del Norte before dawn Friday, causing power outage in a number of towns in the province.

In a report on Saturday to the Lanao del Norte Provincial Police Office, Major Mark Capitle of the Kauswagan Municipal Police Station, said residents of Barangay Paiton first heard two explosions preceding the total loss of electricity in their houses.

There are text messages spreading around stating that villagers had found a lifeless body of a man with blast wounds near the damaged tower, possibly the bomber accidentally killed in the explosion. There was no mention of it in Capitle’s initial report to the Lanao del Norte PPO, however.

The Dawlah Islamiya, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, is blamed for all the bombings in recent months of power relay pylons and other facilities of the National Grid Corporation in the provinces of Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Cotabato.

The Dawlah Islamiya and its ally, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, both have a reputation for bombing buses and commercial establishments if owners refuse to pay “protection money” on a monthly basis.